@Wyald
...this worst to me is pushing Valetta into the background while making her out to be an almost yandere in making weapons.
Then I'm sure you'll like what you see when you click on the "covers" tab, as for what you can expect in the pipeline in the next volume. Minor spoiler though...
And this is my personal opinion, but I don't see Valetta as a yandere. Jealous sometimes, maybe, but that's perfectly understandable. But the thing about her drive for weapon development is that she's more of a realist than anything else. Both her parents went to war, and only her father came back alive when she was just 11. She experienced first hand the hard life of a post-war time period to the point of nearly dying of starvation, and almost losing her father as well, let alone her entire village's experience during the famine before Kazura came. This was after both sides "lost" the war in a sense sustaining heavy casualties, despite the other side (Valvert) having a much larger and powerful standing army. Chapter 11 was the turning point for her (being almost raped and murdered), when she realized just how vulnerable, not only herself, but also her whole village, and her much-smaller country of Arcadia itself really was. And they're all aware that the armistice will expire in 4 years' time, and if nothing is done, the underdog Arcadia is almost guaranteed to lose when the war starts again. And the war
will resume...it's not a matter of if, but
when...and the characters are acting accordingly with the assumption that it will resume after 4 years. So while Kazura handles the improvements and problems to daily life of society like agriculture and flood management and whatnot, Valetta has planned on handling the elephant in the room, a matter that seems to be in the far of distance but closer than it may seem. The two of them are handling different matters entirely, but simultaneously.
Edit:
The possible war seems to have taken a back burner to an ice house which isn’t a great move.
I forgot to mention that the whole purpose of the ice house is to create a new industry, and generate revenue through taxes...because one of the biggest problems that the territory is facing is the chronic shortage of funds, still suffering the effects of the heavy losses sustained during the last war. Not enough money means not enough resources can go into the military spending budget (i.e. salaries to hire soldiers, cost of standard issue armor and weaponry, horses...etc). Kazura's role is mostly focused on is tackling the territory's internal affairs issues and management from the financial side of things.
A modern equivalent to the ice house's construction would be the state government using public funding to construct and build a casino, stadium, fulfillment warehouse, underground subway, private highway...etc. And the management rights would be left to private organizations or companies. Revenue generated from those public projects would then go to the federal government, who would allocate a portion to military defense. Although since this is set in more primitive time period, each territory would be responsible for it's own standing army's military management, and would be obligated to provide and send a certain number of professional soldiers and commoner conscripts (who are mandated to bring their own standard of equipment for the most part) in the event of a war campaign when war is officially declared by the kingdom.